


When granted a second chance

by restlessAnatomy



Category: Free!
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Eating Disorders, Happy Ending, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Original Character Death(s), Past Abuse, Self-Harm, i guess?, i swear to god this gets shippy around the halfway mark
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-14
Updated: 2013-10-14
Packaged: 2017-12-29 10:15:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,162
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1004199
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/restlessAnatomy/pseuds/restlessAnatomy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nitori Aiichirou is uncannily observant. And who better to observe than Matsuoka Rin?</p><p>  <i>"It’s like you wake up one day and the light’s blown, and no matter how many times you change it the light won’t come back on.”</i></p><p>- </p><p>an incredibly angst-filled fic in which nitori learns how to help rin, and rin learns how to help him back.</p>
            </blockquote>





	When granted a second chance

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [When Given Enough Chances](https://archiveofourown.org/works/947815) by [emmawalters](https://archiveofourown.org/users/emmawalters/pseuds/emmawalters). 



> TRIGGER WARNING FOR EATING DISORDERS, MENTAL HEALTH PROBLEMS, MENTIONS OF PAST ABUSE AND SELF HARM AND MENTION OF SUICIDAL IDEATION. please read with caution! this is my first time writing something involving these issues, so please don't hesitate to comment if i've handled it less than optimally! and i promise there is a happy ending. 
> 
> also, insertion of a few headcanons here, namely that they both dye their hair.

Nitori Aiichirou was uncannily observant.

Growing up, it had been a necessity to read the emotional barometer when he crossed the threshold to minimize disastrous consequences, so the older he got the better he got at observing. And what better a subject than Matsuoka Rin?

To the outside world, he seemed an energetic, rough and tumble kind of guy. And he was precisely that, until behind closed doors. His good moods did prevail in their tiny dormitory, certainly; but that’s what they were – moods. And as he was well aware, moods were as unpredictable as the weather.

Nobody but him seemed to see the days when Rin was quiet and withdrawn, the days when his face was lined and stony, his stroke off and times growing longer. Nobody but him seemed to see the trips to the weight room, the impromptu runs, the late-night swims that weren’t posted to his workout sheet. Even with his heightened abilities of observation, he knew there were things that he was missing. But since their relationship wasn’t particularly close, he didn’t feel right looking beyond the surface. It’s none of his business.

But when Rin begins to tire after only one lap at practice, when he has to swim over to the side of the pool and hold onto the ladder and breathe, when their coach begins to reprimand him, he decides then and there it’s becoming his business.

The circles beneath his eyes, the blue lips and fingernails. He’d tried not to notice.

“Excuse me, coach…” He butts in, holding up his palms as if to say, _please excuse me_ , “Matsuoka-senpai has had a very bad stomach bug and he’s pretty tired. He didn’t want to skip practice, though I said to him…”

Rin shoots him a look full of gratefulness and suspicion. Aiichirou nods curtly and then turns away, still babbling excuses. Finally, Mikoshiba excuses them and he holds out a hand for Rin, towel in the other, and he escorts him back to their room.

“Matsuoka-senpai… I know it’s none of my business, but I’ve got an idea of why you were so tired. So please, please stop- what you’re doing.” _You’re already good enough_ , he wants to say, though God knows that didn’t work the first time. _You don’t have anything to improve._

“I’m not-“ Rin starts to say, face still obscured by the towel on his hair.

“Please don’t lie to me, Senpai. I know you think I’m stupid, but I’m not. Not about this, anyway.”

Rin’s mouth opens, like a fish gasping for air. Apparently, he can’t force any more words out, so he just lays down on his bunk and turns away. Aiichirou hesitates before turning away.

“If you get hungry, you can eat any of my food. I won’t care.”

Rin doesn’t reply. He goes back to practice.

When he returns, none of the food is missing.

And that’s how it begins.

-

For every step forward, it feels like there are ten steps back.

He’s learning to cook, meals low in calories and high in nutritional value. He tried to hide calories in the food, to stop Rin’s bones from appearing clearer every day, but was forced to stop when he discovered him on his knees in the restroom, purging what little he’d succeeded in forcing down his upperclassman’s throat. Growing desperate, he had done something uncharacteristic; He returned home, spoke to his mother, begged her for his sister’s diaries and the cookbooks his mother had bought during that especially hellish year.

He pores over them while he’s in bed, pressing his fist to his shaking lips, struggling to keep the tears from staining these precious remnants.

Eventually, some progress begins to be made. The sight of Rin on the scale doesn’t terrify him like it used to, and he’s using the affirmative language that he barely got to practice back then, to reassure him that this was _good_ , that it was _good_ he was earning weight back.

But there are still days when it’s a struggle.

“I’m back,” he announces, flipping the light on. It’s silent, but the heaviness to the air tells him that Rin’s around. He glances towards the bunk and spies Rin on his side, unmoving, staring towards the wall. He suppresses a sigh and dredges up whatever enthusiasm is left after the long day. Times like these he knows the protocol: be as obnoxiously bubbly as possible until Rin starts moving again.

“Man, I went to help Takagi with his math and I swear he’s deliberately obtuse, it took us fifteen minutes to do one lousy problem! I would still be there if his roommate hadn’t come in and started demanding he start laundry because the pile was on his bed, ha-ha…”

Rin grunts, not moving.

“Well, now I’m here, and I was thinking maybe we could go down to the cafeteria for dinner? I don’t feel like cooking tonight, so… I’ll treat you, okay?”

“Mn. Not hungry.”

Aiichirou’s stomach drops and his throat clenches. It’s been a week and a half, a blessed week and a half where not only has Rin eaten at every meal but has even been allowing himself to snack, and on one special day even insisted they go to McDonald’s so he could overcome one of his fear foods. “Matsuoka-senpai… please, you’ve been doing so well. Just come down to the cafeteria. I’m sure you’re hungry.”

“Nitori…” Rin breathes, sounding as though he would growl if he had the energy. “Not tonight.”

“Senpai! Come on! You’ve been doing so well, and I’ve been so proud of you, so please come down with me-“

Finally, Rin rolls over, struggling to lift his eyes to Aiichirou’s. And suddenly his dread-clouded mind registers he wasn’t using the tone of voice he had when he was abstaining –no, his voice was breathless and hollow and his eyes were dull buttons, glassy and unfocussed. He was exhausted, but by what he had no idea. “I’m not… regressing. Nitori,” he promises, sounding as though each word weighed a thousand pounds. “I just... too tired. To go down with you.”

Aiichirou nods, kneeling down and reaching out, squeezing his shoulder. “I’ll bring you something back, then.”

Rin nods, closing his eyes. Aiichirou turns the light back off when he leaves.

 -

“Umm, captain. Did something happen with Matsuoka-senpai?”

Aiichirou had made his way to the front of the bus, cupping his hand around his mouth. Just last night Rin’s mood had been elevated, almost manic, and he had vowed over dinner to kick Iwatobi’s collective asses the next day. Later, when they ought to have been asleep, he’d suddenly announced that he was going for a run, because he was too keyed up about what the morning would bring.

But when he’d woken up, his demeanor was flat, his eyes were dull and glassy, and he didn’t just seem to be ignoring Aiichirou –it was like he didn’t know he was there.

Mikoshiba shrugs, glancing over at the boy in question. “I took him off the relay. I suppose he’s sulking.”

“Eh? Why?” The words burst out of him, and he slapped a hand over his mouth, looking furtively over his shoulder. Rin hadn’t seemed to notice.

“He’s too preoccupied, and he’s acting selfishly.” The captain had replied matter-of-factly. “He’s a fantastic swimmer when he’s on form, but this rivalry with the Iwatobi boys is sapping the energy he could be putting into improving.” The sour half-cock of his mouth relaxes as he takes in Aiichirou’s worried expression. “He’s still in the 100 metre free. Hopefully the discussion we had last night will motivate him to do better.”

“Thank you, captain.” Aiichirou ducks his head appreciatively, and turns away before he lets his irritation show. No wonder Rin was so upset. Mikoshiba was always so blunt, and no doubt he’d handled Rin’s emotions roughly.

 It makes it a bit easier to have someone to blame, though he’s not even sure himself that Rin would have been happy if he’d beaten them in the relay.

He ducks into an empty seat for the remainder of the trip, keeping his eyes trained on the back of Rin’s eyes. He doesn’t move for the rest of the journey.

The other boys file off the bus quickly, Aiichirou at the back of the line, and he’s about to step off when he catches a glimpse of burgundy from the corner of his eye. Rin’s still sitting there. Hesitantly, he makes his way over to him, clutching the hem of his jacket.

“Ah… Cheer up, Matsuoka-senpai! You’ll have another shot at the relay when we go to nationals! There’s no way our school won’t make it there! So you should just focus on your 100 metre free, and just forget about the relay-!” There. Finally, a movement, a momentary spark in his eye. His smile begins to widen, expecting to see Rin sit up with newfound purpose and exclaim that yes, he’ll do his best and aim higher next time, when-

“Shut UP!” He snarls right in Aiichirou’s face, suddenly on his feet and he can’t help but stumble backwards, calves knocking against the seats on the other side of the aisle. Rin pushes past him and storms out of the bus. Aiichirou can only stand there and watch him go.

-

The crack of the starting gun fills his ears.

In the tumultuous few seconds that follow, he momentarily loses sight of Rin, looking ahead of the other swimmers, and is confused when he sees still water between the two adjacent lanes.

Then he realizes Rin is lagging behind.

His stomach tightens with worry as he watches Rin struggle to make up ground. His stroke is pathetically off, he’s coming up for breath at all the wrong times, and Aiichirou wants to kick himself for agitating Rin further before his race.

 _But Matsuoka-senpai always pulls ahead after the turn. He can still make it!_ He crosses his fingers tightly, chanting for all he’s worth, he _knows_ Rin has the strength to make up the distance, and he will!

But he doesn’t.

He thinks that the sight of Rin slamming his fists against the pool wall is the most heartbreaking thing he’s seen in a long time- until Rin slips, again and again, trying to climb out of the pool. He’s frozen to the spot, a lump in his throat, and he wishes that he were down there to hold a hand out to Rin, pull him out and hand him a towel and hide him from the thousands of eyes that are trained on him, this strange red-haired boy coming apart for so many to see.

It’s a shame-filled Aiichirou that watches the referee pull him from the water, who doesn’t have the sense to follow him into the locker room until Mikoshiba elbows him pointedly.

“Ah- yes! Right!”

He pushes past the other members of the team to get to the stairs, races down them as quickly as he dares, and runs full-pelt for the locker room. It’s empty.

“Dammit!”

He sprints down the unfamiliar halls, unable to think, try and determine what way he may have gone, and he’s so frenzied he nearly misses the Samezuka jacket disappearing around a corner to his left.

He’s wandering aimlessly, his shoulders slumped, head ducked as though in prayer. He can’t see his face. “Matsuoka-senpai!” he wails, sprinting to catch up with him. Rin doesn’t even make an effort to outrun him, and stops dead when Aiichirou grabs his elbow.

“It’s okay! You’re- just having a bad day, that’s all!” The afterimage of Rin failing to lift himself out of the pool swims before his eyes, and Aiichirou redoubles his efforts, wanting to eradicate any feelings of insignificance from his teammate. “That doesn’t change the fact that you’re insanely talented! I’m sure if you were in better condition, you would-“

For the second time that day, Aiichirou gets a split-second warning. This time he does notice the sudden tense of Rin’s shoulders, his hands balling into fists. He barely manages to dodge the fist that’s swung his way. He stumbles backwards, lifting his ears to muffle the almighty crash it makes when Rin’s fist collides with the pyrex window.

“SHUT UP! Why don’t you ever SHUT UP?”

An all-too familiar panic beats into Aiichirou’s throat and his instincts are screaming at him to get away get away now and his chest feels like it’s being squeezed in a giant’s hand because Rin is wild-eyed and teary, shoulders shaking and teeth bared, like a cornered animal, and this is the point where things get dangerous but he forces himself to stand his ground.

“Senpai-“ his voice wavers in fear but he presses on, still clutching his forearm. “Please calm down! If you keep that up you’ll get in trouble, and you might not be allowed in the next tournament!”

“It doesn’t matter!” Rin shrugs his hand off violently, raising a fist  and he can barely hear what he says next because his heart is pounding in his ears and his arms are up to protect his face before he knows it, shaking like a leaf. “I don’t give a shit what happens anymore! I’m pathetic! That’s why I was taken off the relay!” He gesticulates wildly, unable to keep still as the cacophonous flurry of rage and despair and god knows what else inside of him keeps rising, rising, until he looks like he’s about to explode.

It’s not the yelling that bothered him- Rin’s _always_ yelled, and he's used to that. He's used to yelling, and he can deal with that, but he's _never_ raised a hand to him before and now that he has he can't get the image out of his mind, like it's burned into his retinas. He thought he was safe now.

“Forget it! I quit. I’m done swimming!” There’s a metallic crash as Rin kicks a wastebasket flying, slamming his fist against the window once more, and turns to walk away, eerily calm. Aiichirou can't bring himself to follow and, instead, sinks to his knees, still shaking.

-

Aiichirou hadn’t been born an observant person.

No, when he was younger, he’d been blissfully unaware. He’d thought that his family was –well, not happy, but at least normal. Bearable. He’d learned to analyze the situation, realizing that a misreading could result in primordial rage. Had the house been tidied? Had he and his sister done their chores? Was dinner on the table, or being made? Was his father clutching that ubiquitous amber-filled glass?

He learned how to wear long sleeves in summer and how to dab makeup on himself and the places his mother couldn’t reach on her neck. He learned how to wear his hair short and speak less, to study when he wasn’t sleeping or exercising, to minimize the derision he copped for being flamboyant, effeminate, small statured and excitable. And he definitely never let anyone know of his proclivities toward the same sex –not that they particularly needed to know. That was just one more thing to ridicule.

Years passed, and his father continued to drown himself in rage and whiskey, his sister wasted away to nothing, and his mother remained a constant background fixture, sweeping, dusting, mopping at 3 AM, translating her tumultuous emotions into bursts of cooking and decorating. Aiichirou stayed in his room studying, mostly pretending he wasn’t there.

As soon as he could, he left for boarding school.

-

Finally, he picks himself up off the floor and makes his way back to the bleachers. Mikoshiba notices that he’s pale and sweaty, but he waves it off and directs his attention to the pool. He’s made it back just in time to watch the relay.

His eyes float vaguely over the lanes until he spots the familiar forms of the Iwatobi team, and he watches vaguely as they begin to swim. He tries not to wonder where Rin is, if he’s watching, too.

They’re pretty good, he thinks to himself, better than at sectionals. Even the butterfly swimmer (he thinks his name is Ryuguzaki?) has improved exponentially. If he didn’t know better, he’d think that it was…

“Matsuoka-senpai?!”

“The hell is he doing?” Mikoshiba murmurs next to him. Aiichirou takes a closer look, unable to believe his eyes.

What? What the hell is he doing with the Iwatobi guys? His brow knits as he puzzles it out in his mind. Maybe they went after him after Rin had stormed away from him in the hallway? Maybe this was their way of making things up?  If that were the case…

“GO!” He jumps to his feet, cupping his hands around his mouth, screaming from the bottom of his lungs “GO, MATSUOKA-SENPAI!” He doesn’t wonder any longer why he’s swimming with them, he pushes all memory of the earlier argument from his mind.  He strains to see his expression even from this distance, but he’s pretty sure he’s smiling.

He cheers louder than anyone when Nanase’s hands slam onto the wall, when the number one lights up next to Iwatobi’s name. And when he glimpses Rin being buried in a four-person hug, his throat constricts and he ducks his head to wipe the hot tears from his eyes, tells himself that he’s happy that they four are together again.

There’s a bit of a scene after that as the four of them are reprimanded by the referee and disqualified, in which Aiichirou slips away from the bleachers and makes his way to the bathrooms, locking himself in a stall. Here he allows himself two shameful tears, furious with himself for feeling this way. He should be happy that their relationship has been taped back together, but he’s not.

 In the time he’s known him, Aiichirou had realized that Rin wanted nothing more than to be part of that group again. He thought he wanted it for him, too, but now that it was reality he wasn’t so sure. The last few months hadn’t been pleasant by anyone’s terms, but he did feel almost special for being the person Rin leans on. He wants to laugh. Him, special?

It’s pointless to hope that their dynamic will continue after today. Rin will ease his way back into the lives of his childhood friends, confide in them, let them see his vulnerabilities, while Aiichirou will blend into the background and Rin eventually forgets they were ever maybe even a little bit close.

“Selfish.” He whispers, hitting himself over the head. “Be happy for him.”

The rest of the day passes in a blur, he does worse than usual in his races, and he’s still scolding himself for thinking so selfishly as they trudge off toward the bus terminals. It’s been a long day, and he’s tired and he just wants to get on the bus and make it back to Samezuka as quickly as possible. He’s about to step onto the bus when Rin grabs his arm. Curious, he steps back, allowing the other members to file on. Rin’s looking everywhere but at him, his free hand cupping the back of his head, and it might just be a trick of the light but his cheeks look darker than normal and-

“Nitori… no. Ai.” 

His heart stops for a second.

“Starting tomorrow, let’s swim together, yeah?”

In that moment, all the doubt and envy and bitterness at Rin’s reunion with his friends whooshes out of him like hot air, and he grasps Rin’s hand with both of his own.

“Of course, Rin-senpai!”

-

There’s a few good weeks after this. Aiichirou glows with happiness every time he’s called “Ai”, and while it still feels clumsy in his mouth, he revels in every chance he gets to call Rin by his given name. While shaky at first, Rin’s welcomed back into his old group plus one, and their bonds begin to heal and deepen once more. Aiichirou notes this with a small shock of jealousy, though he chides himself for this. It’s _good_ Rin has more than him now. Being a support network of one is impossible. He learned that the hard way, years ago.

And maybe Rin senses that he’s feeling left out, because he begins to invite him along, asking him to come to the functions outside of their joint practices. He gets to know the Iwatobi guys better, and grows especially close to Hazuki.

But this kind of thing doesn’t go away, no matter what circumstances change. Rin begins to withdraw again, gains on his times again, goes out less, sleeps more. Aiichirou isn’t too worried. He’s grown accustomed to this, knows the necessary changes to his routine, makes excuses at swim club and goes to get notes from Rin’s classmates. He knows he’ll pick himself up again, and he’ll hover in the background, ready to catch him if he stumbles.

Though he realizes one day that maybe he doesn’t know Rin’s condition as intimately as he thought.

“Rin-senpai, are you home?” he calls out, shutting the door behind him. There’s a rustle in the bathroom that tells him he is.

“In the shower,” comes the reply at a delay. “Shaving. Don’t come in.”

Aiichirou makes a quiet noise of assent, setting his bags down. He lets his gaze drift over the room, letting it rest on Rin’s bed. He narrows his eyes, looks harder.

There. Half-obscured by his pillow is a pencil sharpener, a small screwdriver. A closer look affirms his suspicion: the blade has been removed. And then he realizes that the shower isn’t running.

_Oh, no. No no no._

“I’m coming in!” he bellows, slamming his shoulder into the door and twisting the handle. Rin squawks, trying to cover himself, pulling a towel over his lap and Aiichirou just falls to his knees, never so thankful to be wrong.

“Get the hell out, Nitori!” Rin snarls, wiping his hands on the staining towel covering his thighs. Aiichirou shakes his head, breath coming in shaky draws. “What the fuck do you think you’re playing at, barging in-“

“I had to make sure you weren’t- senpai… you don’t need to do this to yourself, either.” Head still bowed, he reaches out, touching the exposed flesh just above Rin’s knee, chosen because it would be hidden by his swim jammers.

“What the hell do you know?” Rin demands, standing up, and Aiichirou doesn’t even care that he’s pantsless, all he has eyes for is the crimson blooming from his thighs. “You’re always so- you always act like you know everything about _me,_ about _this_ , about _my life_ , but you don’t- you don’t understand anything, you moron! You’re always so goddamn happy –what the hell do you know about being like this!”

Rage bubbles up from his throat and suddenly he’s shouting back, and though his memories are screaming at him not to make him madder, that this didn’t work the first time, he’s finally sick of it. He’s sick of Rin regarding him as some oblivious mother figure who doesn’t know the first thing about what he’s dealing with.

“I know I’m stupid, senpai, and I know you think so, but don’t you dare ever say I don’t know what it’s like to feel like this! Don’t you ever say that I don’t understand what you’re going through!” And his hands are at his waist, unbuttoning his pants, and Rin’s staring at him like he has three heads until he pushes down his boxers just enough to show the raised ropey scars interlacing over his hips and upper thighs, ending a half-inch above where his swim trunks would.

His point made, he buttons his pants again and glares at Rin squarely in the eye. “I understand as well as you do. So stop thinking that I know nothing.”

Rin’s voice is tiny when he replies. “I’m sorry.”

Aiichirou nods gruffly. “It’s okay. Use disinfectant on those. I want you to throw that away and use mechanical pencils to write with from now on, okay?” Then his voice softens. “And when you feel like doing it again… please talk to me. I won’t think you’re horrible.”

Rin bows his head and Aiichirou exits the bathroom.

Later, he holds Rin’s hand tightly as he throws away all his sharpeners and disposable shaving razors.

 -

It’s been a mostly unremarkable day when suddenly, as he’s moving from geography class to English, Rin makes his way through the crowd and stops him.

“Oi, Ai.”

“Senpai? What are you doing on the first floor?” Aiichirou blinks in confusion, standing in the middle of the hall. He’s jostled on either sides as the crowd parts to move around the both of them, but he barely notices.

“I want to talk to you after classes finish. When’s your last class end?”

“Um. Four-thirty. Why-“

“I’ll meet you in the garden, yeah?” His face is preoccupied, eyes not meeting Aiichirou’s as he brushes his fingers against the younger boy’s shoulder. And as suddenly as he appeared, he’s gone. Aiichirou shakes his head like a dog clearing water from his ears, and bustles towards his class.

Throughout the next few periods, he’s distracted, unable to focus. What could he want? What does he want to say? He doesn’t allow himself to hope for a confession –he’s resigned himself to the fact that this is one-sided, long ago.

“Nitori. Nitori!” His classmate jabs him in the side, gesturing towards the teacher. Aiichirou expels a shout of embarrassment and answers his teacher, cheeks flushed. He can’t stop his thoughts from drifting as soon as the spotlight is off him, however.

Finally, the torturously long final period ends and he all but races to the gardens, huffing and puffing. Almost immediately, he spies Rin, and tries to wipe the sweat from his brow and palms before he notices. Rin sidles up to him, hands in his pockets, staring at the ground.

There’s an extended, painful silence in which Aiichirou continues to sweat bullets and squirm, glancing repeatedly up at him before he finally speaks. “So.”

“Yeah? What’s up? Is something wrong? What do you want to talk about?” He wishes he could bite his tongue off. _Just shut up and let him speak!_

“I just. Wanted to say thank you. Y’know, for all the shit you do.” Rin runs a hand through his hair nervously, finally looking at him. “I’m not exactly- you know. Good at showing emotions. Well, you know, positive ones.” He laughs, a barky exhale, and Aiichirou allows himself to smile in response. “I’m- probably not a very good friend- no, shut up, it’s true,” he interrupts, as Aiichirou begins to deny it. “I’m selfish and I don’t give anything back and- _fuck,_ I sound like a dumbass. Just. Thanks, Ai.”

Aiichirou is about to chime in with a wavery “It’s really okay!” until Rin continues, “You’re like… my best friend, y’know?”

And before he can say anything back, Rin’s staring at his face with determination and his heart’s thumping like a drum and _is this it,_ is this the moment he’s been dreaming about for months and then Rin takes his face in his hands and he wants to scream.

And then he kind of smushes his cheeks together and leans down, presses his forehead against Aiichirou’s, and stays like that. Nothing more. And he _gets_ it, this is so perfectly congruent with Rin’s apparent inability to express emotions in a regular way, so he reaches up and grabs Rin’s cheeks and squashes them so his lips are pursing out.

The smile that breaks over his face makes his heart sing.

-

It’s another shocker of a day.

Rin didn’t even bother turning up to swim practice, and Aiichirou has to make up some lie about expired ice-cream and explosive diarrhea, and he tries to swim normally until Mikoshiba pulls him aside and says that it’s okay if he goes back to the dorm to take care of Rin. The way he says it makes him wonder if Mikoshiba knows more than he lets on about Rin’s troubles.

“I’m ba-“ he begins to call out, until he hears the dry, hacking sobs coming from the lower bunk.

Rin’s on his side, facing the wall, and immediately Aiichirou is on his knees next to the bunk, hand on his shoulder, “ _What’s the matter, what is it?”_ and Rin just chokes back “ _I don’t know, go away, leave me alone_ ” and he just shakes his head and pulls Rin onto his back, pressing his forehead against his shoulder and rubbing his chest.

“Just one day.” Rin chokes, chest heaving, sounding like he’s about to break apart again, “I just want one _fucking day_ where I can wake up and know that I’m going to feel the same the next day.”

“I know. It’s like you wake up one day and the light’s blown, and no matter how many times you change it the light won’t come back on.”

Rin’s eyes are red and watery and there’s snot running down his face and his skin is blotchy, but especially in this moment, Aiichirou wants to kiss him. But he doesn’t. He just continues to rub his chest, cooing gently, and eventually the sobs subside into sniffs.

“…How are you so good at this?” Rin murmurs, staring up at the wire netting of the top bunk. “It’s like you read minds, sometimes.” Aiichirou winces at the memory of a few months ago – “ _You always act like you know everything. You don’t know anything, you moron”_  -and forces it back down. That was a Rin who was furious and ashamed of being caught compromised, lashing out harshly. This Rin was placated and secure.

“Did I ever tell you I had a sister?” Aiichirou murmurs. Rin turns his head slightly, eyebrows raising.

“She was three years older than me. She had- the same food trouble as you. I don’t know why she thought she was ugly, because she was the most beautiful girl I knew. And then a few years ago, she just… wasted away into nothing.”

 And suddenly everything begins to pour out. About his neurotic mother, his father’s wrathful blows, the abasement he faced on a daily basis for being too feminine, too loud, too stupid, worthless, hopeless trash. The solace he found in the sharp kiss of a blade. And now _he’s_ the one crying, with snot running down his face and Rin pulls him onto the bunk next to him and rubs his back until he’s just hiccupping periodically.

“I feel kind of like a shithead now.” Rin says after a while, still staring straight up, still rubbing his back. “For never asking. And just being so self-absorbed.”

Aiichirou laughs. “I never thought I’d live to see the day that you admit your self-absorption, senpai.”

“You know –that offer you made. About talking. It goes both ways, just so you know.”

In lieu of an answer, Aiichirou raises his hand from Rin’s chest to cup his cheeks and squeeze.

In a gesture that surprises them both, Rin ducks his head a little and kisses the webbing between his index finger and thumb.

-

It’s two in the morning on a Saturday night –well, Sunday morning. The two of them had gone bowling with the guys from Iwatobi to celebrate Tachibana’s birthday, and they’d had a pretty spectacular time. The moment Aiichirou recalls with the most fondness is seeing Nanase and Rin arguing good-naturedly, arms around each other’s shoulders, laughing.

Nowadays, he doesn’t get that twitch of jealousy when he sees Rin with the others. After the tumultuous eight-or-so months that they have been friends, his limited capacity for trust has allowed a thick veneer of faith around their soap-bubble relationship. He knows that the companionship he shares with Rin is different to that of his childhood friends, he knew that from the start, but he is just now realizing that that doesn’t mean what they have is inferior.

Though he can’t help but wonder.

“Senpai?” He whispers, quiet enough that Rin wouldn’t hear if he were asleep.

“Mmm?” comes the lazy reply.

“What we- talk about. Do you talk about that with Nanase and Tachibana and Hazuki?” He feels sort of childish asking this, like he’s asking him who he likes better. But he’s not, really.

“Not really.” Rin drawls, tongue thick and heavy. “They’re good guys, but- I don’t think they’d get it.”

Aiichirou nods to himself, turning on his side and watching the patterns the moonlight throws through the curtains. “Have you ever thought of talking to someone trained to talk about that kind of thing? … It’s not that I don’t like being there for you, but it’s just that it’s impossible for only one person to be a support net, you know?”

Rin laughs sleepily, and he hears the blankets shift beneath him. “Not here. At the beginning of this year I tried going to the school counselor, but the cunt said that I should take up knitting or some bullshit like that to distract me from how much I wanted to die, y’know?”

Aiichirou swallows down the stab in his chest at that frank confession. Though he’s glad he can be this open, it’s hard to hear Rin say those things. It’s hard to think about Rin not being alive.

“But when I was in Australia.” Rin continues, sounding as though he’s waking up, “There was this- organization? That dealt with that kind of shit. I think it was Headspace or something. That helped for a while. But there’s not really anything like that, here.”

“Japan’s not so great with mental health issues, huh…” Aiichirou murmurs, letting his hand slide beneath the guard rail and hang down the side of the bed. Immediately his hand is wrapped in warmth as Rin reaches up to hold it.

They stay like this for a while, until Aiichirou remembers something. “If I called someone- someone who’s not going to tell you to start knitting,” he giggles beneath his free hand, “Would you go see them?”

Rin hums in thought, and Aiichirou can almost see his expression: eyes rolling up, mouth skewing sideways with his lower teeth jutting out over his lip. “Tell me how you know them first.”

“I talked to them for a while. After Akiko.”

Rin’s hand tightens briefly around his own. “Yeah. I’ll go.” The silence is warm and comfortable and Aiichirou feels himself slipping off into sleep at last, when Rin lets go and says, “Oi, get your ass down here.”

Aiichirou swings himself over the guardrail, skipping the last two runs and all but falling onto the bottom bunk. Burrowing his nose into the arch of Rin’s neck, he smiles.

-

By all accounts, it’s been a pretty shitty week –for Aiichirou. Rin seems to be doing alright. He’s not too sure, to be honest, because he’s mostly been operating on auto-pilot. There’s been too much going on in his head to take much notice of his friend.

He’d feel bad, but when it gets to this time of year, he reverts to an old coping mechanism: when his thoughts stray anywhere near the negative, he slams the door shut on his thought process and begins to distract himself immediately, for hours on end. In this state, it’s hard to grasp the passage of time, or his own reality, really. Other people and their feelings are as foreign to him as Peru.

He’s lying on his bunk, staring blankly up at the ceiling. Half-formed thoughts flit through his head, and then are immediately chased out and replaced with a fuzzy, static sensation. He closes his eyes, feeling completely drained. He wishes he could cry, but he just doesn’t have the energy to summon it. He’s aware that he’s alone –Rin’s out at an appointment, maybe- and although he’s too warm and he wants to sleep and the lights are still on, he doesn’t move.

What feels like hours pass in this haze, until the dull growl in his gut grows to a sharp ache. The pain is enough to sharpen his focus, and his head clears enough to think. _Right. Sit up, left leg over, right, down the ladder. Now go to the kitchen._ He feels an undercurrent of shame for having to think like this, and that these simple actions take so much of his effort, but he swats it away. If it hadn’t been him, he’d be babbling about how this wasn’t a shameful thing – “ _Some days are just really hard! It’s okay to have days where it’s an effort to get up, okay? Don’t beat yourself up any more!”_

His thoughts fall back into sharper focus as he grazes on the cold leftover curry he had cooked two nights ago, the crushing melancholy having reduced to just a slight pinch in his throat.

“I’m back!” Comes a call from behind him, and he jumps. Rin throws his bag onto the floor, looking expectantly towards the desk, then the top bunk. “Not home?”

“In here.” Aiichirou calls. Rin paces into the small kitchenette, perching himself on the counter. “How was your visit?”

“It was alright. It’s still awkward talking about that sort of thing with someone I barely know. I don’t know if it’s helping.”

“You have to give it time. And you have to work, too.” He starts shoveling curry into his mouth for something to do. For once, he can’t think of anything to say to Rin.

Aiichirou barely notices when a flicker of something stony marks Rin’s cheerful expression. He places his palms on the edge of the counter, fingers tensing. “Ai. This week you’ve seemed sort of…” He trails off, making a vague gesture with one of his hands. Aiichirou smiles vaguely in wonderment of how Rin manages to sound shy while speaking in his signature gruff tone. “Are you alright?”

“I’m okay, senpai. I’m just feeling a little tired today. I’ll be okay in a couple of days.”

Rin nods, accepting it, but not seeming placated, and then moves to rummage in the fridge. “Do you want to go on a run before practice tomorrow? The cherry blossoms are blooming.”

Aiichirou’s hand tenses around his chopsticks, and he has a feeling that they would have broken had they been disposable ones. “Actually, I won’t be going to practice tomorrow. I was going to ask you to take a letter to captain Mikoshiba once I wrote it-“

“Nito _ri_ ,” Rin grunts, slamming the fridge shut. He looks up quickly, startled at the recurrence of his surname. Rin turns around, face twitching with emotion, fists clenched, and Aiichirou has to force himself keep his arms at his sides. “Stop being such a damn hypocrite.”

“Rin-“

“You’re always getting on at me for getting cagey but then you go and do it too! You always pick and pick until I tell you shit but you never- you hardly ever talk to me about you! Fuck, Ai,” He pinches the bridge of his nose, eyes screwed shut. “Practice what you preach, will ya?”

Aiichirou tries to swallow the lump in his throat. Tears of shame and annoyance at himself well in his eyes, and he dips his head to obscure them. “I know. I just didn’t want to bur-“

“If you know what’s good for you you won’t finish that statement.” Rin huffs. Aiichirou just shrugs, sniffing quietly, and picks his chopsticks back up although his appetite has long since waned.

He can still feel Rin’s eyes on him, though, and hear the expectant huffs that he gives every now and then. It takes him a few minutes to find a wording good enough. “It’s… Tomorrow is Akiko’s birthday. And two weeks and three days after that is her- anniversary.”

He hears the rasping shift of fabric that signals that Rin is moving, and he doesn’t have the energy to be surprised when he feels strong arms wrapping around him from his side. He doesn’t lean but _sags_ into Rin’s chest, feeling the tears finally come, white hot and stinging his eyes. He lets them stain Rin’s shirt, and he lets Rin clumsily pat his head. Oddly enough, it helps.

“I’m always pretty down around this time of year. Sorry for not explaining, Rin-sen… Rin.”

Rin’s arms squeeze tighter around him for an instant. “No worries. Hell, I’ve given you worse, huh?” Aiichirou can sense his grin and allows a shaky laugh to be coaxed from him.

They move to the main dormitory area after that, settling down on Rin’s bunk and resting his laptop on the end of the bed so that they can watch a movie. Halfway through, Rin pipes up during a very tense scene in which the protagonist is clinging to the edge of a tall building by just a few fingers

“Can you introduce me to her?”

Against his will, Aiichirou feels a smile tugging his cheeks. “I’d like that. So would she.”

-

Aiichirou feels lazy.

He hardly ever gets like this –he’s always going, going, going, talking a mile a minute and exerting all his effort into all he does. But it’s hard to feel productive on this particular Friday afternoon. Actual classes had ended last week, giving way to the sort of useless activities that always took place as the year came to a close. He hadn’t even bothered to go to classes today, heading out for the day instead.

He lays on his bunk, casting a look of distaste toward his luggage. Tomorrow he would be picked up by his mother, and taken back to that house for a solid three months before he could return to the sanctuary of school.

But he wasn’t scared, as the Aiichirou of the past had been. Over the years his ability to read people had let him know when to make himself scarce, and he was confident in his game plan to avoid any confrontations. And if what he had gathered from the few phone calls he made home was correct, his father was growing feebler these days, his fury turned inwards instead. He knew he should care, but the thought caused no reaction in him at all.

“I’m back,” Rin calls lazily, setting down a few bags on the empty desk and whipping his shirt off, heading right into the bathroom.

“What are you doing?” Aiichirou calls, too lazy to get up and look.

“Dying my hair. Gou will give me a metric ass-ton of shit if I show up with this much regrowth.”

“Sensible.” Aiichirou closes his eyes, listening to the chirp of cicadas outside their dormitory, the rush of wind through the leaves. He lays there for a while, sweat dripping down his forehead, feeling the air in the room grow heavier and stuffier with each passing moment. He jumps down from his bunk to the floor, intending to open a window and turn on the fan, when Rin walks in.

“What the hell did you do?” He demands in a strangled voice, pointing at Aiichirou. Aiichirou lifts his hand to his head, running his fingers over the closely-cropped hair, dyed back to approximately natural black. “You look ridiculous!”

He chooses not to point out the fact that Rin has his hair tied into at least twenty little pony tails to part his hair so he could apply bleach to the regrowth, nor that the hairties he used have plastic bobbles on them. “Well, it’s summer.” He explains, still rubbing his hands over his (lack of) hair. “I have to go home for three months, so I thought it would go better if I had short hair.”

Rin scowls involuntarily, nodding. “…Yeah, okay, fair enough.” Aiichirou opens the sliding doors to the balcony and turns on the fan, falling instead onto Rin’s bunk. He just can’t be bothered to climb back up again.

He doesn’t realize he’s fallen into a doze until Rin calls out for him. He nearly falls off the bunk as he jerks into a sitting position. “Yes! Sorry? What was that, Rin-senpai?”

“Can you do my hair? It’s just dried.” Rin emerges from the bathroom, carrying a dye kit. Aiichirou rubs his eyes, yawns, and gestures to the floor in front of him, balancing the dye kit on the bed.

His eyebrows knit in concentration as he ties off sections of Rin’s hair, brushing the dye into the newly-bleached parts. He’s gotten a fair bit of practice at this, lately.

“Will you be okay this summer?” Rin blurts out, the tips of his ears turning pink. Aiichirou doesn’t miss a beat, continuing to tie and brush and part without a pause.

“I could ask you the same. I’ll be fine. It’s only three months.” He cradles Rin’s head between his index fingers, forcing the older boy to tilt it to the left. “It’s not as violent as it used to be. You try not to relapse during the break, you hear me?”

“Hah. Like you’ll let me.” Rin turns around to face him, not even caring that Aiichirou doesn’t have time to move the brush away and ends up smearing dye across his cheek. “You’re talking as though we won’t hang out together this summer.”

Aiichirou feels his cheeks burning. “I- well! I didn’t want to jump to conclusions, I guess? But that sounds great! I’d love to hang out this summer! Maybe we could even go to that new theme park! Turn around, would you?”

Rin complies, pawing at the dye on his cheek with the back of his hand. “Sounds good.”

A few minutes pass in silence as Aiichirou dabs dye on the rest of his hair, then covers it with a flowered shower cap. The sun’s still high in the sky, but the air pressure has changed and he can feel that it’s after five without even looking at the clock. A pang of anxiety shoots through his stomach and he must have clamped his hands tight around Rin’s shoulders, because he’s twisting around and looking up at him with such a bare face.

“You’re sleeping over at my place regularly, by the way. I expect that to be at least a weekly occurrence. Severe penalties will be dealt if you don’t comply.” Rin tries his best to look serious, but it’s impossible to take him seriously with the shower cap. Aiichirou grins and reaches out his hands, squashes Rin’s cheeks between his palms.

“Sounds good to me!”

With the swiftness of a bullet, his own face is cupped, and he’s being yanked downward, and he only has a split second to tilt his head to the side before their mouths crash together and their teeth clack and their noses bump.

They’ve kissed only a few times before this. Once, when he was helping Rin with his sit ups, Rin planted a peck on the corner of his mouth as he came up, and continued as though he had done nothing.

 Another time it was 2 am, and the storm that had been brewing all night finally come to a head, lightning crashing what sounded like 10 feet from their window, and Rin had held his face as though it were a holy relic and wept.

The next had been their first outing that either of them had had the courage to refer to as a date, and the both of them had been sweating anxiously the entire time waiting for the right moment, until they both got fed up at the same time and counted down from three on their way home. Each time it happens, his head goes light and feels like it’s going to float away.

He’s not sure when the lines of their relationship began to blur from confidants to- whatever they are now. He can’t pinpoint the moment his feelings changed from simple admiration to adoration. All he knows is that he hopes that his heart will always race like it does whenever he sees him.

Aiichirou pushes his face away to exclaim in pain, while Rin keeps planting what are basically open-mouthed slobbering licks on his cheeks, and the whole thing is so disgusting he can’t help but laugh. “Rin, you’re disgusting and you’re getting dye on me!”

“Good. We’ll match.” His voice is choky with laughter and Aiichirou’s face feels like it’s going to split in two from grinning.

A short while later, Rin goes to rinse out his hair, and Aiichirou lays back down on the bunk, allowing his thoughts to stray. He’s going home tomorrow, and the thought doesn’t torment him as much as it used to. He’s not looking forward to the deafening silence that blankets his family, nor the way he has to tiptoe on eggshells to avoid a blow-up. But he is looking forward to seeing his friends, seeing Rin- and he realizes with a shock that this is the first time he’s felt any excitement for summer in years.

Aiichirou feels like his chest is going to burst in the best possible way.

 


End file.
